Running around

Henry and his friend, Lia, at the Red Rose Run

Henry is that blue streak in the center; Michael is running alongside on the sidewalk

Agatha, "making soup"

On her own initiative, she went and got the soup cookbook, picked some clover from the yard, got out the pan and a spoon and "cooked" it, then served us some in a bowl.

Another Agatha initiative: this was her chosen outfit for camp last week.

We went up to the Berkshires for five days (no pictures; forgot the camera!) and then Michael went to Montreal for a conference. So there's been a lot of running around! In between, the kids are going to morning day-camp and I am trying to finish up an essay and a book review. By July 1, we'll all take a break for some unstructured time.

Agatha's imagination is flowering. Her imaginary friend, Coyote, has a response or reaction to everything lately. Henry's had a rough couple of days; I think the new school anxiety is finally hitting him. He's still attending his old school (for camp), but it is different-- a different set of teachers, kids, and activities. Yet he knows he'll be starting a new school in the fall. "I don't wanna go to camp! It's just too weird!" he wailed yesterday. He's grouchy and out of sorts. I've been working hard to use my "aikido parenting" inspired by my friend, an aikido master-- don't resist, blend; try to use your antagonist's energies to turn into a more beneficial direction. It is great advice and very effective, but sometimes I still get worn down! My antagonist uses a lot of force.

Al rescate, amigos!

Agatha's been watching a lot of "Diego" lately. I'm not too proud of it, but on the other hand the Netflix on demand is a pretty wonderful thing for helping Mommy get through the day! She gets to watch one in the morning when she wakes up, one after waking from naptime, and usually another one at some other critical moment. Her love of Diego has translated into her speaking some words in Spanish and concocting various schemes for rescuing animals in trouble. She loves to shout out, "al rescate, amigos!" and head off running. This morning she ran all way to her preschool, stopping only at the crosswalks. Seriously, that's seven-tenths of a mile! (or so says Google maps) The whole way she was talking about the roadrunners having a race and rescuing the pygmy marmoset and so on. But the cutest thing is to hear her count in Spanish, which she can do up to 10: "uno, dos, trays, kwat-roh..." It sounds like Scooby Doo speaking Spanish.

Speaking of numbers, Henry is learning multiplication! He brought home worksheets he'd filled out with the times 2s, 3s, and 4s ("Ones are just too easy, Mom.") At the Montessori school they use beads to calculate the multiplication and get a visual grasp on the concepts; the worksheets are just the traces of that process in the classroom. Pretty neat. Next year it looks like we will be transferring him to a high-powered, more traditional-format private school, about which we are both excited and anxious. I'm glad he's had four years to learn in this more hands-on and play-based Montessori way, but I think he's ready for more rigor and structure. We'll see.

Besides multiplication Henry is also very interested in time right now. He has a clock that speaks the current time when a button is pressed, and he has certain "favorite times" that he likes the clock to speak out to him: 7:11 is the most beloved, but also the palindromic 12:51, and the hilarious 5:55 and 4:44 and so on. He has figured out that his clock happens to be set about 3 minutes fast, so when he sees it is 7:08 in the kitchen he races upstairs to hear his clock say "seven-eleven, a.m.," which gives him great satisfaction.

bathroom spruce-up

Last week, Michael was away at Dartmouth doing work with the Maxfield Parrish archive in their library. He was actually gone for 9 full days, people! I decided to spend that week giving our tired old yellow bathroom a facelift, since we'd be out of our normal routine anyway, and I'd have to work around one fewer person. I did most of the work while the kids were at preschool in the mornings, and my mom helped out tremendously, picking them up most days and loaning me her car to go out and buy supplies. I know it doesn't look much improved in the pictures below, but you have to imagine that the walls and ceiling were peeling from old water damage, so even though it's still just white, it's much cleaner, brighter, and nicer. And above: Agatha and Henry in their double-wide "house" on the front porch. Notice the shrewd use of a structural beam above! Everyone was into home improvements last week, I guess.

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